Not revealing his records -- ESPECIALLY if he has nothing to hide - is a good political move. By not revealing - he keeps his detractors tied up -- chasing their tails..... If he revealed his records with nothing to hide - his detractors would move on to something else to gripe about -- possibly something important......

(17-01-2017 01:24 PM)onlinebiker Wrote: Not revealing his records -- ESPECIALLY if he has nothing to hide - is a good political move. By not revealing - he keeps his detractors tied up -- chasing their tails..... If he revealed his records with nothing to hide - his detractors would move on to something else to gripe about -- possibly something important......

It's a "can't lose" for Trump.....

Not sure if I agree with your assessment.

It's unlikely to go away, now that his inner circle has been discovered to have substantial ties to Russia and that he - Trump - continues to lie about whether or not they've been in touch with their Russian counterparts.

What could be more important than to confirm that Trump is a Putin stooge?

What could be more important than to confirm that Trump is not a Putin stooge?

Releasing the returns will likely answer it once and for all. The fact that he continues to lie about being unable to release them goes, again, to his character as a pathological liar and his impression that he's hiding something.

There's also the problem of leaks. By taking the initiative and publishing his records, Trump retains control of the story. Once the documents are leaked - some of them already have been, and more are likely to find their way into the hands of a reporter somewhere - Trump will be again put on the defensive and lose control of the story.

I think his tax returns and his inner circle's ties to Russia are Trump's "tape on the door" moment; the moment when it was discovered that something nefarious is going on. (Frank Wills was a security guard in the Watergate hotel who discovered that Nixon's Republican operatives had broken into Democrat offices and had put tape on the door to keep it from locking. http://articles.latimes.com/2000/sep/29/local/me-28706 )

(17-01-2017 04:39 PM)tomilay Wrote: His petty lies don't bother me as much as what he might be forced by Putin to give up in terms of privileged information at the risk of passing over his scatological orgies to wikileaks.

I don't think you understand the real concept of blackmail.....................

If you and me already know about Trump's supposed predilections --- what good is it, as blackmail to have pictures???? Odds are, they won't be as good as the bystander's imagination.

(17-01-2017 01:24 PM)onlinebiker Wrote: Not revealing his records -- ESPECIALLY if he has nothing to hide - is a good political move. By not revealing - he keeps his detractors tied up -- chasing their tails..... If he revealed his records with nothing to hide - his detractors would move on to something else to gripe about -- possibly something important......

It's a "can't lose" for Trump.....

Not sure if I agree with your assessment.

It's unlikely to go away, now that his inner circle has been discovered to have substantial ties to Russia and that he - Trump - continues to lie about whether or not they've been in touch with their Russian counterparts.

What could be more important than to confirm that Trump is a Putin stooge?

What could be more important than to confirm that Trump is not a Putin stooge?

Releasing the returns will likely answer it once and for all. The fact that he continues to lie about being unable to release them goes, again, to his character as a pathological liar and his impression that he's hiding something.

There's also the problem of leaks. By taking the initiative and publishing his records, Trump retains control of the story. Once the documents are leaked - some of them already have been, and more are likely to find their way into the hands of a reporter somewhere - Trump will be again put on the defensive and lose control of the story.

I think his tax returns and his inner circle's ties to Russia are Trump's "tape on the door" moment; the moment when it was discovered that something nefarious is going on. (Frank Wills was a security guard in the Watergate hotel who discovered that Nixon's Republican operatives had broken into Democrat offices and had put tape on the door to keep it from locking. http://articles.latimes.com/2000/sep/29/local/me-28706 )

Just like Watergate, this story is not going to go away.

*edited to fix link

Trump doesn't CARE if it "goes away". He can't be forced to reveal his tax record, if he doesn't want to.

(17-01-2017 04:39 PM)tomilay Wrote: His petty lies don't bother me as much as what he might be forced by Putin to give up in terms of privileged information at the risk of passing over his scatological orgies to wikileaks.

I don't think you understand the real concept of blackmail.....................

If you and me already know about Trump's supposed predilections --- what good is it, as blackmail to have pictures???? Odds are, they won't be as good as the bystander's imagination.

For it to be leverage -- it needs to be secret.............

It's not.

It's unverified. The blackmail is in releasing incontrovertible evidence of it. It's more effective if it's not so secret. It could just be verified less harmful information hinting at something else that only Trump would have no doubt about. The message being, it could get ugly pretty fast, but he has options by compromising - I think that is why they call it kompromat.

It won't be an effective blackmail politically as far as the Republican establishment goes, because there is no bottom for them. But it could turn off at least some of his voters; that in turn might force the Republican establishment to act against him.

We have to remember that what we observe is not nature herself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning ~ Werner Heisenberg